1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a method for computerized processing of digitized information for display on a display means and a corresponding apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many concepts exist today for the design of user interfaces in a computerized manner for display of information on a display unit. A frequently used user interface is known as the “tab card”, which is shown in FIG. 1. The tab card TC shown there has a display region C that corresponds to “card” and a number of flags T1, T2 and T3 on which it is indicated which information is presently rendered in the display region C. The individual flags T1, T2 and T3 can be activated to display the information associated with the flag in the region C, with the activation of a flag being made visually clear by the flag being optically emphasized or a dividing line between the flag and the region C by being removed, such that the impression is created that the tab card lies open to the corresponding flag. The flag T1 is activated in FIG. 1 since no dividing line is present between the flag T1 and the region C.
Information can be grouped into independent logic groups with tab cards, for example into the groups “books” or “films”. A user can obtain access to the corresponding groups via the flags. Tab cards exhibit the disadvantage that the information to be grouped essentially has the same cardinality, i.e. the information all belongs to a uniform hierarchy level. Moreover, the information on the respective tab cards cannot be represented dependent on one another. Additionally, tab cards present no overview of the correlations between the individual items of information.
Information that is applicable for a number of respective file cards must be repeated again on every file card, such that the display area on the display screen is undesirably occupied by redundancies.
A further known concept for a user interface is “expandable blinds” or “disclosure triangles”. Expandable blinds are used in order to offer detail views regarding superordinate information, with the superordinate information being presented in list form. FIG. 2 shows a user interface in the form of such an expandable blind. The user interface has a number of blinds B that each has a triangle having a vertex that is horizontally aligned. Superordinate information is displayed right next to these triangles, which is not shown in FIG. 2. These blinds can be expanded by activation of an individual blind B (in particular via clicking on a triangle by means of a mouse on the user interface) such that open blinds OB arise, of which two are shown in FIG. 2. The superordinate information of the folded blinds B is retained, but the corresponding triangle rotates 90° downward so that the vertex points downward. Detailed information regarding the corresponding superordinate information the blind is then found in the expanded region of the blind OB. The opened blind OB can be closed again by a corresponding click on its triangle.
With such expandable blinds a user initially obtains only an overview of the superordinate information given a list of the closed blinds. Detail information then becomes visible by the opening of the blinds. Expandable blinds are suitable for the presentation of two hierarchical information levels, namely brief information and detail information. Expandable blinds, however, are not suitable for the depiction of additional hierarchy levels or of a number of items of detailed information, since then the clarity of the presentation is limited. When the number of items of superordinate information in the list of the expandable blinds is very long, a large amount of space for the display of the superordinate information is also lost, and this space should more desirably be used to present detail information that is of particular interest for the user.
A further known user interface known is the presentation of information in a tree structure. A number of hierarchies of information are depicted in a tree structure. A tree structure is conventionally used in file administration systems of computers. One example is Windows Explorer® from the company Microsoft. There the existing space that is used for Explorer® is divided into two parts. The file tree is depicted in a left display region. The sub-structures of the file tree are opened via corresponding activation of the elements of the file tree by means of a mouse pointer. The files within an individually marked element of the tree structure are displayed in a right display region.
User interfaces in the form of a tree structure support the navigation of information with complex hierarchies. They do not serve to display detail information regarding superordinate information.